A Tale of Two Lawmakers in the Sacramento Swamp

There is a reason the expression “Drain the Swamp” is used to describe rooting out corruption and bad behavior in politics.

“Swamps” exist in every city hall, state Capitol and in Washington D.C.

Sacramento’s swamp is one of the largest in the country, and members from both parties waddle in the muck. The Globe has written recently about just how swampy it is recently.

As the Globe recently reported, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final expansion of full-scope Medi-Cal went into effect January 1, 2024, closing the gap by making more than 700,000 illegal immigrants residents between ages 26 and 49 eligible for full health care coverage – at a very precarious time with his $68 billion budget deficit.

If Gavin Newsom and the state’s Democrats – who surely flunked basic math – are trying to bankrupt the state, they are going about it correctly. This latest expansion of Medi-Cal will cost  $2.6 billion annually on top of the $330 billion budget, which the Legislative Analyst’s Office warned, California cannot afford.

In response, Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Riverside) just introduced a bill to end all taxpayer funding for health care for illegal immigrants – those in the state illegally.

BREAKING: I just introduced AB 1783 to revoke all taxpayer funding for health care for illegal immigrants in the California State Budget.

It is unconscionable to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to give universal healthcare to illegal immigrants when our own citizens cannot… pic.twitter.com/70Ci93HRw9

— Bill Essayli (@billessayli) January 4, 2024

However, few other Republicans were willing to sign on to his bill as co-authors. The Globe contacted several Republican Assembly offices to ask if the member would co-author. We only heard back from one.

Within a day, Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R-Porterville) wrote an op ed on “Why a Republican lawmaker supports offering healthcare to California’s undocumented immigrants.” Mathis justified and supported Gov. Newsom’s coverage of illegal immigrants saying, “the new California policy saves money in the long run and ensures our communities stay healthy.”

Mathis said “It’s well-documented that preventative care reduces overall health-care costs by catching and preventing medical issues before they worsen to the point where a patient has to get treated in an emergency room,” as if that is justification for expanding health coverage to people in the state illegally.

Notably, California is the only state in the country to fund health care for illegal immigrants.

Then Mathis directly attacked Assemblyman Essayli over his new bill.

“Assembly Bill 1783, introduced on Wednesday, would just encourage the undocumented population to avoid or delay receiving preventative care, therefore ensuring that taxpayers and hospitals will continue to foot the bill for more costly procedures later on when these people inevitably end up in the hospitals and can’t afford to pay for their services,” Mathis said.

This elicited a response from Essayli on Twitter:

This is why Sacramento is broken and corrupt! I’m on the inside and can confirm. This “Republican” sounds and acts just like the Dems. Sacramento RINO @devonjmathis just published the below op-ed SUPPORTING taxpayers funding healthcare for illegal immigrants. Does he really support this position? Why did he vote against the bills when he had the chance? Or is he interviewing for his next job, a Sacramento Swamp Lobbyist. It’s obvious he’s already sold out and changed his position for financial gain. What a loser. Every elected CA Republican must take a position on this issue. We cannot fund healthcare for illegal immigrants when we are in a $68 Billion deficit.

https://t.co/ZU935phkeB

— Bill Essayli (@billessayli) January 5, 2024

Assemblyman Essayli’s reference to Mathis interviewing for a new job is because Assemblyman Mathis announced in late November that he was retiring from the Assembly at the end of his term, and teased his “involvement with public service will continue.” This is secret swamp code for he will pursue a career in consulting and/or lobbying.

Typically, when an elected lawmaker announces what appears to be a premature “retirement” from public office, it is because they have lined up another job, usually lobbying or consulting.

Immediately bets were made about which political consulting firm Mathis would be working for.

However, after Essayli’s Tweet, Mathis lost it and went into junior high attack mode calling Essayli a “headline whore”:

Didn’t take you long #Noob
Before you try to launch red meat 🥩
Do your homework 📚🤓

Looks like you’re just being a #HeadlineWhore

It’s clear you know nothing about how the healthcare system works.

I spent 8 years as the ranking member on BudgetSub1 Health&HumanServices
✌️ https://t.co/U81pRTofa8

— Devon J. Mathis (@devonjmathis) January 5, 2024

Immediately others weighed in.

Brandon Saario said:

I read it sir and it’s pretty much something Nancy Pelosi would right You want 1. Amnesty 2. California taxpayers to cover medical expensive of people who break our laws 3. Offer nothing to Californians There is no difference between you and @AOC.  @billessayli is right to call you out. Imagine if the CAGOP elected members had as much energy fighting for Californians as you do attacking fellow members who are right, maybe we would win more.

I read it sir and it's pretty much something Nancy Pelosi would right
You want
1. Amnesty
2. California taxpayers to cover medical expensive of people who break our laws
3. Offer nothing to Californians
There is no difference between you and @AOC @billessayli is right to call…

— Brandon Saario (@SaarioBrandon) January 5, 2024

Another poignant reply came from attorney Julie Hamill:

I read the article and thought you made some valid points, but then I come here to see you acting like a little bitch and you’ve lost all credibility.

Essayli replied with an op ed titled California is broke. We cannot afford universal healthcare for illegal immigrants in the Orange County Register, saying:

“Mathis is not seeking re-election, and apparently no longer feels compelled to represent the values of his district, 62.5% of which voted Republican in 2022.

Lobbying is a Sacramento game and yields a lucrative income stream. You get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to peddle power on behalf of special interests who have no regard for how Sacramento policies impact the average Californian. In other words, his sudden change of position and op-ed appears to be a signal to the Sacramento elites that he is ready for hire.”

As Jennifer Van Laar points out at RedState, “Whether Mathis published his opinion piece and attacked Essayli as part of an effort to curry favor with the Sacramento lobbyists or not, I can’t say. But his actions are similar to those of another Republican sellout, Chad Mayes, who authored a $20 billion PG&E bailout bill on his way out the door and is now a partner at Capitol Advocacy, a Sacramento lobbying firm. Mayes and Mathis were part of a very small group of Republicans who voted for cap-and-trade in 2017, allowing Democrats in purple districts to abstain and still have the bill passed, so it’s not really surprising that Mathis is again acting like a Democrat.”

At least another Sacramento swamp creature revealed himself.